


Far Removed

by dracusfyre



Series: Tony Stark Bingo Challenge [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sort of? - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-26 21:51:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16689550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: Trying to clear out some of these old ITAB prompts, so I co-opted one for Square T2: Far Removed:Can we have one when Tony goes back in time and actually met Sergeant Bucky Barnes pre-Winter Soldier. They’d both be so witty and would probably be going at each other while falling for each other at the same time. But then, Tony would soon have to go back to his time. He and Bucky would meet in the modern world again (post-WS), and Bucky would actually remember yay!





	1. Chapter 1

“Tony, don’t!”  Stephen shouted over the comms.  Tony ignored him, setting an intercept course for where Bucky was sprinting away from the rapidly expanding globe of green light.  Even without JARVIS running the calculations Tony could tell that he wasn't going to be fast enough to escape the blast radius, and no one could get to him as quickly as Tony could. 

“Gimme a little extra juice, JARVIS,” he ordered, and saw the red lights flashing on his HUD as JARVIS obeyed, maxing out the thrusters to try to stay ahead of the light.  “Gotcha,” he said, ignoring Bucky's curses as he scooped him up into a bridal carry. 

“Sir, the added weight means we are no longer moving fast enough to escape the event horizon,” JARVIS warned.  "You have approximately ten seconds before it overtakes you."

“Shit,” Tony said, scanning the battlefield, banking left around a (hopefully evacuated) office building. “Alright.  Hey, Thor! Catch!”

"What?" Bucky said in alarm, hands scrambling for a grip on Tony's armor. "No, don't-"

Tony rapidly adjusted his trajectory upwards and threw Bucky as hard as he could at Thor, who turned to look just in time to get sideswiped by two-hundred pounds of angry supersoldier.

“Sir, the light-”

“Did Bucky make it?” Tony couldn’t tell, the HUD was flickering as all power was diverted to his repulsors. “Is everyone else-”

 

 

“Owwww,” Tony said, his aching body dragging him back into unwelcoming consciousness. He tried to move but couldn’t; something was weighing his limbs down.  He opened his eyes and started to panic when all he saw was blackness. “What-” He tried to move again, straining against whatever was holding him, then finally the smell of metal, grease, and hydraulic fluid registered and he realized was in his suit.  The complete and utter blackness, though, even the lack of indicator lights, meant that somehow, despite all of his backups and failsafes, the suit was completely dead. 

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, taking long breaths in to the count of five and then letting them out slowly, trying very deliberately to not think about the amount of air left in his suit.  Then he laboriously lifted one hand and fumbled for the emergency catch, hands slipping before he could finally dig the thick metal fingers of the gauntlet into the hidden lever.

Finally it clicked and the whole suit split open and folded away from him, leaving him gasping gratefully for air and sitting up, stumbling away from the claustrophobic nightmare of a dead suit.  He rubbed his arms against the slight chill, trying to get his bearings. It was night-time, which was…different, since it had been daytime before.  He was clearly still in London, though, so…the green light must have killed his suit, but why in the hell would his team leave him lying in it long enough for it to get dark? Unless they couldn’t find him, but Tony had a beacon with a separate battery backup for just that purpose.

He edged carefully out of the alley he was in to the street, finding it strangely dark and deserted.  He didn’t have a cell phone or his watch, so he had no idea what time it was, but even the streetlights were dark, which didn’t make any sense no matter what goddamn time it was.

“Don’t panic,” Tony told himself sternly, and went to go sit next to his suit. By the dim light of the moon and stars he pried into the metal plating and realized to his dismay that the battery backup was mysteriously dead, too.  “Still not a good time to panic,” he reminded himself, even though he could feel his heart starting to race.  He sat for a little while longer, concentrating on the chill of the paving bricks under him, the damp edge in the air, and the familiar feeling of his suit under his fingertips, until his heart calmed.  Once he felt steadier he stood and dragged the suit behind a pile of rubble, partially disassembling it so it looked less like a robot and more like a pile of scrap metal.  Then he rubbed his hands together, and started walking even though he was sorely tempted to stay right where he was until the comforting light of dawn.

The street was still eerily dark and still until a door opened down a side street and light and noise spilled out of it.  Tony headed eagerly in that direction, slipping gratefully through the door that promised people and perhaps answers, then stopped dead once he was inside.

 _Movie set,_ he thought wildly, staring wide-eyed at the crowd of soldiers in front of him, wearing uniforms that were straight out of World War II.  Someone came in behind him and jostled him out of the doorway, so he edged around the room, more unwilling to face the eerily deserted street than he was to find a deserted corner of this odd bar and its odder clientele and try to figure out how in the hell he got zapped back to World War II.

Well, actually, that was probably the least of the mysteries.  Stephen’s bizarre green light was obviously the cause of that. The Avengers had been called to help him with an assault on the London Sanctuary, and the Mystical Morons of whatever who had been fighting them had obviously set off some sort of time trap that only Tony had been lucky enough to get caught in. The real questions were, how long was he going to be stuck here before Stephen found him and what in the hell was he going to do with himself until then?

Tony made his way through the soldiers, trying to find an empty seat from which he could figure out the answers to these burning questions, when the flash of a familiar profile made him pause.

Was that…Tony edged closer and looked again, and sure enough, it was. “Bucky?” he said in surprise and winced. Goddammit, Stephen was going to yell at him for this.

Bucky looked up from his drink, glancing around the bar before he caught Tony's eyes.  He looked like he should be drunk, short dark hair askew like he’d been running his fingers through it, his shirt and coat partially unbuttoned, and stubble darkening his jaw – clearly Past Bucky gave as much of a shit about rules as Current Bucky – but his eyes were clear and sharp. “You seem to have the advantage of me,” Bucky said, his gaze flickering over Tony with interest.  After a moment he must have come to some sort of conclusion because when he slid off the barstool to offer his hand, his smile was lazy but the look in his eyes was definitely…not. _Uh-oh,_ Tony thought, trying to quell the way that look made his pulse quicken. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Tony,” he said, automatically reaching out to shake Bucky’s hand.  It was strong and calloused in his own, gripping for just a moment too long before he let go. Tony blinked rapidly as his entire view of James Buchanan Barnes shifted.  “I knew it,” Tony blurted. “Steve said you…” At the last minute Tony remembered where and when he was and stopped talking.  Debating Bucky’s sexual orientation could wait - especially since now he knew he had the trump card in that particular argument, given the fact that Tony hadn’t been so smoothly eye-fucked since college.  "You would be here," Tony finished, praying that he wasn't so far back in time that Steve was still back in New York, skinny and asthmatic.

“So you’re a friend of Steve’s?” Bucky said, sounding only mildly surprised, pulling out the stool next to him as he sat back down. Tony let out a silent breath and told himself to be more careful as he sat down. “How do you know him?”

“Through Howard,” Tony said, somewhat honestly.  “By reputation, mostly,” he added. “I doubt Steve would remember me.”

“Well, if you’re here looking for him, he just left.  Agent Carter just pulled him out for a…meeting,” he said.  “So it’s just you and me,” he continued with a curl of his mouth, taking a sip of his drink.

“No, I wasn’t, uh, looking for Steve,” Tony said, swallowing thickly, trying not to be distracted by that mouth.  He realized this was the first time he'd seen Bucky smile; if he did during Tony's time, it wasn't while Tony was around.  Not that he paid a lot of attention to Bucky's moods or anything, it was just...he had a really nice smile. After a long moment, Tony realized that he was staring at Bucky's mouth and that the silence had stretched out just a bit too long. “I just needed to get out for a bit, you know?” he said quickly, looking down at the wood of the bar and hoping Bucky hadn't seen him staring. 

Bucky snorted and nodded like _hell yeah, I know._ “So if you know Howard, you’re probably one of those LA types,” he said.  “That must be why you talk a little funny. And dress funny,” he added, eyeing Tony, which made him run a hand self-consciously over his shirt.  He’d been at Stark Industries for a raft of business meetings when the Avengers call had come in, so he had just thrown off his jacket and tie and climbed into his Iron Man suit.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Tony said.  When he saw a secret smirk flash across Bucky’s face he suddenly got the sinking feeling that being an “LA type” meant something different in the 40s.

“Want a drink?” Bucky asked, thankfully changing the subject. "I'm buying," which was good because Tony didn't think this pub took AmEx. 

 _This is a bad idea._ Somewhere in the future Stephen was screaming about Tony messing with the flow of time. “Sure,” Tony said anyway.  A few more minutes wouldn't hurt, right?

As Bucky knocked back the finger of whiskey that was left in his glass and gestured to the barkeep, Tony realized that if he wasn’t drunk, he was desperately trying to be.  Suddenly he realized when and where he was, and he reflexively glanced around the room, looking for the other Howling Commandos. Or rather, the men who had, at some point tonight, just _become_ the Howling Commandos.

“Were you here to meet someone?” Bucky said, voice suddenly carefully neutral as the bartender set a couple of glasses in front of them.

“What? Oh, no,” Tony said, realizing that Bucky had seen him looking around.  “I just…thought I recognized someone. From work. Uh, I mean, you know. Howard’s…lab.”

“Ah." Bucky visibly relaxed at that.  "Well, cheers,” he said as he slid Tony’s glass over to him. Tony lifted his glass in acknowledgement and took a sip of his whiskey and almost gagged from the rough burn and sooty aftertaste of cheap whiskey.  He couldn’t completely suppress a cough, however, and Bucky clapped him on the back, squeezing his shoulder.  Tony couldn't suppress the shiver that went down his spine at the contact, even as his eyes were still watering from the rotgut booze.  He hoped that Bucky wouldn't notice, but from the hooded look in his eyes he definitely did.

“If you spend a lot of time with Howard I imagine you’re probably used to the good stuff,” Bucky said with a half-smile.  “Drink enough of it and you get used to it.”

“I’m sure,” Tony said hoarsely, trying not to notice the way Bucky's long-fingered hands were cradling his glass as he took a drink.  "Or maybe your taste buds just shrivel up and die." God, the burn and taste got _worse_ the longer it lingered, so he took another sip just to stop it.

Bucky snorted.  "I'm in the Army, my taste buds died a long time ago." There was that smile again, Tony thought helplessly, suddenly seized by the need to see him laugh. “So what do you do for Howard?” Bucky asked.  "I've been to his lab once or twice and I would definitely remember seeing you there."

“I build things.  Help him design missiles and…stuff.”  Despite his best efforts he kept losing his train of thought whenever he caught Bucky’s gaze.  The look in his eyes – along with the rotgut whiskey – was making heat curl through Tony's veins.  He’d never admit it, least of all to Steve or God forbid, Bucky himself, but he had fantasized about Bucky looking at him just like this.  “It’s all classified,” Tony finished, before he said too much.  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and took another sip of whiskey. 

“The last day I was in the States I went to the Stark Expo,” Bucky said, smiling ruefully down into his drink.  “Did you know him then?  With the-”

“Flying car?” Tony said with a groaning laugh.  Howard had always hated it when people brought up the flying car. “Kinda. I’m perfecting the repulsor technology, but he eventually gave up on the car idea.”

“Too bad,” Bucky said.  “I’d like to fly something like that one day. Flying car or a jet pack or something. ”

“Really?” Tony made a thoughtful noise, wondering if that were true of future Bucky too, or if idle dreams like flying had been burned out of him by Hydra. “So, uh, what brings you here?” he tried, trying to deflect the conversation away from himself.

Bucky shrugged, mouth twisting.  “You know, just…trying to relax.  Let off some steam.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Pretty good so far,” Bucky said. “And I’m feeling optimistic for the rest of the night,” he added, glancing at Tony out of the corner of his eye as he took a sip of his whiskey.  Tony felt his ears get hot like he was a teenager again.  

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be in town for,” he said, trying to quell the situation, but when Bucky smirked and Tony listened to himself, he wanted to bang his head on the bar.  Tony took another swallow of the whiskey as punishment for running his mouth and grimaced at the taste, even as it made his fingertips tingle.  Apparently his subconscious was trying to talk him into doing something _extremely stupid._ Stephen was going to be so angry at him. 

“Well, these days, who is, right?  Don't know if you heard, but there’s a war on. That’s why you gotta carpe that diem.” Bucky leaned over and tapped his almost empty glass against Tony’s half-full one.

“More like _cave_ that _virum,”_ Tony muttered to himself. He eyed the glass and Bucky, wondering just how many he’d had already.  Looks like the super-soldier serum, knockoff though it may have been, was already affecting his metabolism. There was a sudden clamor from the next room and Bucky’s head whipped up, looking a little wild around the edges.  It was just a moment, a second even, but it was enough to show how thin Bucky’s easy-going veneer was.  When he saw Tony watching him, he tried to cover it with a smile but Tony could see how tight his shoulders were when he finished off his glass of whiskey. “Look, I know what you’ve been through,” Tony said quietly. “What you’re going through.”

Bucky laughed harshly, pushing his glass away and nodding at the bartender for another. “Of course you do, the whole Western front knows, it’s been in all the papers.”

“No, I mean I _know,”_ Tony repeated. “I was – was captured too. And-” Tony forced himself to say the word, though it was heavy and tasted like ash, “-tortured. Not by Hydra. I was, uh, in the Middle East before I came here.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky stared at him, face unreadable. “Is that why you came up to me? You thought we would be buddies because we, whaddyacallit, have some shared life experiences?”

“No,” Tony protested, running a hand through his hair.  “I mean…what I'm trying to say is that when I came back and everyone _knew_ , they all stared at me, as if they were just waiting for me to, I dunno, start crying or freaking out or something. It was so goddamn aggravating that I started avoiding people I knew so I wouldn’t have to see that… _look._ ”

“Yeah, I know that fucking look.”  The bartender came over to top up his glass but this time Bucky just toyed with it instead of drinking.

Tony took another sip of his own, noting with relief that his glass was almost empty.  It was strange, talking to this…version of Bucky. This man looked like he had just got out of hell, sure, but he didn't seem haunted by his past in the same way that Future Bucky was, weary and wary and tired.  He seemed lighter, somehow, even though the memories of Azzano must still be fresh. 

Tony drained his glass. Thinking of Azzano was reminding him of Afghanistan, so he forced his thoughts back to the present. The past. Whatever. “Hey, when you finish that, wanna take a walk?” he asked suddenly, the noisy crowd of the bar starting to seem grating instead of welcoming. 

In his defense, when he said the words he really did _mean_ just a walk, but when Bucky’s eyebrows went up and his eyes grew hooded and dark, smile knowing, Tony realized his mouth had run away with him again. “Sure,” Bucky drawled.  "If you're in a hurry, let's go."  He drained his glass and put some money underneath it before sliding off the barstool.


	2. Chapter 2

With a jerk of his head, Bucky gestured towards a door at the back of the bar. When they were outside, Bucky took a deep breath, as if the warmth of the bar had been stifling and he just then realized it.  “Where to?” he asked as he followed Tony out of the alley, footsteps echoing against the stone pavers.

“Um…” Tony took a second at the cross street to orient himself; London had changed a lot since the 40s, but he knew that the Thames was to the south so that’s the direction he turned his feet.  “This way.”  The streets were still eerily empty and quiet, making Tony want to whisper.  “Are you going to get in trouble for being out after curfew?”

“If I were any other sergeant in the Army, maybe,” Bucky answered, pitching his voice low to match Tony’s.  “But I’m a hero now.  Captain America’s right hand man.”  There was a bitter edge to Bucky’s words that made Tony’s eyebrows go up.  “How about you?” Bucky continued, clearly trying to change the subject. “Does Howard run a tight ship down there in that madhouse of his?”

Tony snorted. “Howard doesn’t care what I do as long as he gets results.” Judging from the thoughtful sound Bucky made at that, Tony must have failed to keep the bitterness out of his own voice. “Which is good. Fine,” Tony added hastily. “Because he’s my boss, not my, uh, father or anything.”

“Right,” Bucky said slowly, and Tony winced.  For the next few minutes they walked in silence while Tony died a slow death trying to figure out how to dig his way out of this hole he’d made for himself, then he heard Bucky’s footsteps come to a halt. “So, Tony.” A hand on Tony’s elbow drew him to a stop as well, and Tony’s stomach swooped as he turned to face Bucky. “Are we going to walk all night, or…?”

Tony’s heart skipped and a warm flush prickled under his skin at the suggestive purr in Bucky’s voice. “I, um, I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Tony finally said, acutely aware of where Bucky was still touching him on his arm.  He knew he should step away and break the contact, but he couldn’t.

“Oh, I know it’s not a good idea,” Bucky said, his voice suddenly much closer and deeper. Tony swallowed thickly, heart pounding, helplessly aroused by the barely-there brush of Bucky’s body against his and the smell of cheap whiskey and tobacco and cologne.  Tony shivered when he felt the warmth of Bucky’s breath on his neck.  “It’s never a good idea,” he murmured in Tony’s ear.  “Too dangerous. But right now I don’t really care, because sometimes it’s nice to give into temptation.” Tony squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold on to his good intentions even though he knew all he would have to do is turn his head and Bucky’s mouth would be _right there_ , seductive as sin and twice as hot. Tony jumped a little when a warm, slightly rough hand cupped his cheek and a thumb ran over his bottom lip. “Am I tempting you, Tony?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony said on a long exhale, suddenly aware that he’d been holding his breath.  He couldn’t help but turn his face into the touch, hand coming up to cover Bucky’s.

“This ain’t your first time, is it?” Bucky asked, and Tony’s eyes flew open to see Bucky watching him.

“No, I – it’s not,” Tony said, with a small smile. 

“You’re nervous.”

“It’s just…complicated.” God, so complicated.  Bucky’s eyes were shadowed by the brim of his hat, but the moonlight was faithfully tracing the curve of his jaw and mouth and glinting off the buttons of his uniform.  In that moment, he seemed so unreal, like a ghost made flesh.

“Let me guess, there’s someone waiting for you at home?”

Tony huffed out a laugh at that. _The only person I want waiting for me is you,_ he thought, and that’s when he realized that he really, _really,_ couldn’t do this. “No, there’s no one, but…I still can’t. I’m sorry.”  Tony felt a sharp pang at the way Bucky’s face became shuttered and closed.   “I’m sorry,” he said again, helplessly, and Bucky nodded and stepped away, hand dropping reluctantly from Tony’s face.  Tony had to curl his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching out, suddenly feeling colder.

“Back to the pub?” Bucky offered politely.

Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Sure.”  They walked in silence for a while, before Tony said quietly, “So…does Steve know?”

“That his best friend is queer as a three dollar bill? No, and he never will,” Bucky said sharply.    

Tony held his hands up defensively.  “I’m not going to say anything, I was just curious. I know you two are, you know, close.”

“He doesn’t need to know about this. Not that…” Bucky blew out a breath, shoulders hunched. Tony remembered that Steve and Bucky had grown up in one of the queerest neighborhoods in New York, so it wasn’t like Steve was the innocent naïf that he was sometimes portrayed as in the movies that had been made about him. “Anyway. No.”

“Ok.” They walked in silence, with Bucky mostly leading the way since Tony had been too distracted to see where they were going earlier.

“Do you…tell people?” Bucky said eventually, breaking the silence between them.  Tony glanced over but Bucky was carefully looking into the distance as he walked.

“Just a few people.” Tony cleared his throat. “It’s not so…bad, where I’m from.”

Bucky just made a thoughtful noise at that and stopped.  Tony looked up and realized they were already back at the pub, even though the street seemed just as abandoned as every other one they’d been on.  “Are you going back inside?” Tony asked.

Bucky shook his head.  “I should get back to base.  I’m sure Steve will be up at dawn looking for kittens to save and Nazis to punch.”

“That does sound like Steve,” Tony agreed.  He looked up the street where his suit was hidden and sighed.  “I should be getting back as well.”

Tony set his back to the wall of the alley and slid down to sit on the ground, drawing one knee up to rest his chin on it.  For the rest of the night he tried really hard not to think about all the ways he could save Steve and Bucky or all the ways that would change the future and he _definitely_ didn’t think about the thick file he’d read on the Winter Soldier project.

 The sky was just starting to get lighter when Tony saw gold sparks draw a circle in the air, the space between them shimmering before the other wall of the alley disappeared completely, showing instead a giant desk and overflowing bookshelves.

“About time,” Tony complained, taking Stephen’s hand and letting him help him to his feet.

“I’m sorry, I only had to search through all of time and space to find your unique spiritual signature,” Stephen said, helping Tony chuck pieces of his Iron Man suit through the portal before anyone noticed them.  “I also stopped for coffee.”

“Yeah, yeah, showing up fifteen minutes late with Starbucks, I see how it is.”

Before he closed the portal, Stephen put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Tony,” he said, his mouth flattening into a serious line, “did you talk to anyone while you were here?”

“Just one person,” Tony said truthfully.  “But I didn’t say or do anything that would screw up our timeline,” _I think_ , “I swear.”

Stephen raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced, then he sighed and with a wave of his hand the gold sparks dissipated. “Guess we’ll find out.”

***

Tony tried to get some sleep when Stephen sent him back to the tower, since it had been over 24 hours – or at least it had _felt_ like more than 24 hours, time relativity paradoxes notwithstanding – but even after a shower he felt more wired than tired.  

Tony jumped a little at the sudden knock on his door.  “Mr. Barnes is at the door, sir,” JARVIS said before Tony could ask.

“Oh, shit,” Tony whispered to himself, staring at the door like it was going to turn into a snake. “Um…”  he started backing away towards his bedroom..

“I can hear you in there,” Bucky said, voice slightly muffled as he spoke through the door.  “And JARVIS already told me you were awake.”

“Traitor,” Tony muttered with a scowl before he opened the door. “Hey, Bucky, what’s up?” he asked brightly.  “Is your arm ok? I’m sorry I threw you-”

“Do you know how weird it is to suddenly have a memory that you _know_ you didn’t have before?” Bucky said. “Can I come inside so we don’t have this conversation in the hallway?”

Tony stared and automatically stepped back to let Bucky in, caught completely by surprise. For some reason he had assumed that there was no way Bucky would remember one random almost-sexual encounter from seventy-odd years ago. “I won’t tell Steve if you don’t,” Tony blurted, trying to figure out why Bucky looked more murdery than usual.  “He doesn’t have to know.”

“What?” Bucky shook his head in confusion.  He crossed the room and leaned against the arm of the couch, still watching Tony with an inscrutable look on his face. “I don’t care if Steve knows. I mean, I’m not gonna go and tell him about it, but that’s because it’s, you know. Private.”

“But Steve still doesn’t know you’re gay?”

“Well, no,” Bucky admitted.

“Why not? I mean, you know being gay is not…” Tony waved his hands expressively.

“Yeah, I know it’s not,” Bucky said dryly. “It’s just that telling your best friend that you’ve been lying to him for years-”

“Decades?”

“You know what I mean.  That conversation is never going to be a pleasant one.”

“True,” Tony reflected. “Well, when you _do_ tell him, can I be there? I want to see Steve’s face when he realizes I’ve been right all along.”

“Yeah, about that.” Bucky cleared his throat.

“About what?”

Bucky closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling loudly. “What I came here to say, before we got off topic, is that one of the reasons why I haven’t come out to Steve is because there didn’t seem to be a point.  I haven’t met anyone I wanted to date except you, and I thought you hated me. But now…”

For the second time in as many minutes Tony was stunned into silence, both by the idea that Bucky liked him and also by the fact that Bucky had thought Tony hated him. “But now?”  He managed after a moment.

When Bucky glanced up and met his eyes, Tony was surprised to see uncertainty there. “But now I have this shiny new memory of us almost doing it in a dark alley in 1942 so I thought, hey, maybe there’s a chance.”

“Oh.”  Tony felt a wide grin split his face.  “That. Um, yeah. There’s a chance.”

Bucky smiled slowly, his hand coming up to cup Tony’s cheek like it had years and a few hours ago.  “You know, I tried to find you again.  I even asked Howard if he had a lab tech named Tony.”

“Yeah?” Tony tilted his face into the touch, looping his fingers into the belt loops on Bucky’s tactical pants.  “What happened?”

“He actually did have a tech named Tony.  But when he looked nothing like you, I thought maybe you had been a spy or something.  Then I got scared that your plan was to hurt Steve by outing me and I spent a really stressful few weeks waiting for my blue ticket.”

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry,” Tony said, letting his head fall against Bucky’s shoulder.  "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine." Bucky's arms slowly came up to wrap around Tony's back, as if he were still unsure of his welcome.  "We're here now, so we get to try again, yeah? A fresh start."

"Yeah." Tony hid his smile in Bucky's chest before a thought occurred to him. "Hey, what exactly is "LA type" supposed to mean?"

**Author's Note:**

> I made up the "LA type" quip from Bucky, it's not a historical Easter egg. :) Nowadays LA types mean a little New Age-y, probably works out a lot, has tried at least one diet fad, and has met at least one celebrity but will pretend like it's NBD. Has tried or is trying to work in Hollywood. Back in Bucky's day I feel like LA was probably synonymous with movies, parties, and "fondue." XD


End file.
